The invention relates to improvements in apparatus for manipulating rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus which can be utilized with advantage to expel selected or successive rod-shaped articles from receptacles (such as axially parallel flutes) provided at the periphery of a rotary conveyor. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for pneumatically expelling rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry from the receptacles of a rotary conveyor, e.g., for the purpose of transferring such articles from one rotary conveyor onto another rotary conveyor, from a rotary conveyor onto an endless belt or chain conveyor, or into a collecting receptacle.
Rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry which can be manipulated in the apparatus of the present invention include plain or filter cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos or the like of unit length or multiple unit length as well as filter rod sections of unit length or multiple unit length. Typical examples of such rod-shaped articles are commodities which are manipulated in certain types of so-called filter tipping machines wherein plain cigarettes are united with sections of filter rods to form therewith filter cigarettes of unit length or multiple unit length. For example, each such commodity can include a group of three coaxial components including a filter mouthpiece of double unit length located between two plain cigarettes of unit length. Reference may be had, for example, to U.S. Pat. No. 5,135,008 granted Aug. 4, 1992 to Erwin Oesterling et al. for "METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR MAKING FILTER CIGARETTES".
The apparatus which is described and shown in the patent to Oesterling et al. employs a plurality of rotary conveyors which transport rod-shaped articles sideways and can attract the articles by suction. Such conveyors are normally further provided (or cooperate) with means for expelling articles from their axially parallel peripheral flutes, e.g., for segregation of defective rod-shaped articles from satisfactory articles, for transfer of successive rod-shaped articles into the flutes of a next-following rotary drum-shaped or other conveyor, or for collection in a suitable receptacle or on a take-off conveyor. The removed articles can be examined, e.g., in a laboratory, in order to ascertain their density, weight and/or other characteristics which are important to the purchasers of rod-shaped smokers' products. The manner in which rod-shaped articles can be attracted to the surfaces bounding the axially parallel peripheral flutes of a rotary conveyor is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,969,551 granted Nov. 13, 1990 to Uwe Heitmann et al. for "METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR ROLLING ROD-SHAPED ARTICLES".